'In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play' crackles with electrified desire

Lara Goetsch photo

Rochelle Therrien and Anish Jethmalani in "In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play" at TimeLine Theatre.

Rochelle Therrien and Anish Jethmalani in "In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play" at TimeLine Theatre. (Lara Goetsch photo)

Chris JonesChicago Tribune

The enthusiastic manifestation of unexpected ecstasy occurs often in playwright Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play,” a droll exploration of the early days of electrified desire.

Ruhl’s very clever play — which I last saw at the Victory Gardens Theater in 2011 in a Sandy Shinner production starring Kate Fry — now has been plugged in and amped up for a different era by the TimeLine Theatre and the director Mechelle Moe. It makes politicized fun of both the Victorian ignorance of the female orgasm and the close relationship of the therapeutic massage, a genuinely medical procedure, with the mere provision of pleasure, the medicinal value of which depends, I suppose, on your point of view. And on the level of patriarchal ignorance in any given woman’s life.

The play is set in the 1880s, when Thomas Edison’s toys were opening whole new worlds and new fantastic points of view in the home office of the aptly named Dr. Givings (Anish Jethmalani). But the conflation of vibrator and massage instrument has persisted to this day, infuriating an honest and vital stress-relieving profession. On the way home from the theater, I heard on the radio about a police bust in a suburban parlor wherein the charges included the proffering of a massage without a license. To a man, of course.

Shinner’s 2011 production was delicate, droll and subtle, its revelations slowly unpeeling. Moe’s fuller-throated version is far more unstinting from the start in its exploration of female sexuality and male ignorance thereof. TimeLine’s show features a diverse cast, which means that the show steps away from the structure of the Ruhl script, which deals with race, and racial prejudice, in a very particular way and, as originally conceived, was very focused on the ignorance and complicity of upper-middle-class white America of the late 1800s. That’s a valid take, to my mind. The strongest performance on the stage is from Krystel McNeil, playing an African-American wet nurse, as written by Ruhl as an exploration of the delicate line that must be walked by any nanny or other maternal surrogate, and also an indictment of a kind of polite and condescending racism. McNeil shows you all those layers.

Nothing else ranges quite so deep or complicated here (the men are entertaining but mostly one-dimensional), although Dana Tretta, who plays Annie, the nurse operating the theater of desire, comes close. She’s both funny and poignant, especially in her scenes with Rochelle Therrien, the frustrated wife constantly wondering what her mostly clueless prig of a husband is doing in the next room with a Mrs. Daldry (Melissa Canciller).

No show — like, ever — has as many orgasms, and it’s interesting to see “In the Next Room” again, especially in so different a production with a very clever setting from Sarah JHP Watkins and aptly fussy costumes by Alison Siple. Moe has crafted a particularly powerful conclusion — something beyond what you usually see in a Ruhl play, but embracing the feminist power of one of that gifted writer’s best ideas. It’s like she took the show and gave it a firmer shove toward the right spot for the here and now.